The present invention relates to an apparatus for carrying electronic components and placing them on an electronic circuit board or the like.
Conventionally, to place electronic components, particularly microelectronic components (hereinafter referred to as tip components) of a leadless type onto the circuit board, there has been adopted a method of picking up a tip component with a vacuum type of suction tool, carrying it to a given position and placing it to engage the circuit board. However, problems are involved in the accuracy of engagement of the tip component with the circuit board due to the tip component slipping relative to the tool during the pick-up operation and during the carrying and placing operations. To prevent such slipping of the tip component, the shape of the tip of the suction tool 1 has been improved for better guidance of the tip component 2, for instance, by providing a wide-mouthed opening for the suction tool as shown in FIG. 1. However, this has disadvantages in that the tip component may be tilted in the opening or the tip end of the suction tool 1 comes into contact with the circuit board.
Another method involves providing a position regulating apparatus along the path of the tool to the position at which the tip component is to engage the board and placing the tip component on the position regulating apparatus and then again picking up the position regulated tip component and placing it at the given position on the board. According to this method, the accuracy of the position of the tip component is corrected by the position regulating apparatus, but time is wasted in regulating the position midway of the carrying and placing operations. In addition, a special position regulating apparatus is required, and in picking the tip component up again after the positional regulation, some slipping of the position is caused.